Kenya-Karibu!!

After an 18 hour flight delay (perhaps a prelude to what traveling in Africa will be like) I made it! At 1:30am. Ouch! But thankfully Sasha (a friend from back home in Cass Lake that is here with me) was waiting with a few local witnesses. Was I ever happy to see them. Part of me was trying to be prepared for them not being there since I was SUPPOSE to arrive at 6am the morning before. I was struck by the contrast from the huge and bustling Bangkok terminal-this one was so petite and hardly anyone there. Plus, its out of town a ways so it seems quite remote.
We are staying with a witness sister that is a school teacher. She has a modest house on the school grounds here. And she lives with 3 of her 6 daughters (2 are already married) and her brother. Its very convenient that it is not too far from a kingdom hall that is where the sign language congregation meets! That made me quite happy to hear.
Sunday after sleeping 5 hours I managed to get up for the English meeting at 8:30am. I was feeling pretty good hoping to stay on for the sign lang meeting at 11am. Wrong! Half way thru the English meeting the tiredness attacked me quite forcefully-I barely kept my head up there yet alone for 2 more hours in sign where its dead silent. Wasn’t gonna happen. Next week! But I did get to meet a few in the congregation and one deaf guy too. So my hope is to preach with them some this week.
And…that was basically all I did on my first day here. I really crashed! In and out of sleep all day. I went along to the market to buy food for dinner. We ate ugali (which is a staple here in Kenya). Its made out of water and maize flour. They eat it with their hands and dip it in their vegetables (pea plant leaves which are cooked like spinach). And their was some unidentified meat too(sometimes its better just to eat and not to ask). According to Sasha, this has been her meal everyday here so far. Breakfast was white bread with butter and honey (as has been our lunch too, but we bought some 8 grain bread to vary it up and oranges). So lots of starch is what they eat.
We did chat a bit with the sister last night and another brother from Mombasa (on the coast here). Learned more than we cared to know about the trials of being a teach at an all-boy school for adolescents 13-18. And we also found out what some of the spiritual hindrances are for people in Kenya. Higher education is a big draw for many here. There is a lot of family pressure especially when you are a good student. And that’s about as far as I heard before I crashed yet again;)
Today we got a cellphone to use while here and I got my money exchanged. Did some hand washing.
The 3 daughters at this house seem to SLEEP all the time. I’ve been kind of laughing with Sasha about it because it seems that they stay in bed almost all of the day. Hmm. They are 18 yr old twins and the other is probably about 20. Not sure what is up there.
Well, tomorrow I am hoping to go out with the sign language group in the ministry to preach to the deaf. Should be fun. And we are also hoping to make it to bethel tomorrow or Wednesday.
Until the next time, Mandy